The present invention relates to apparatus for monitoring a system with time in space and method therefor and more particularly relates to novel apparatus such as a unique MRI machine, a novel irrigation apparatus for testing the effectiveness of an irrigation system, a novel testing apparatus for determining the efficiency of a heating and/or cooling system, and the like, for testing or controlling a system in which fluid flows and where in the system fluid either dissipates in part or requires regeneration.
Presently apparatuses are known for monitoring testing or measuring a system in which a fluid that is flowing or substances in the fluid will dissipate in part as it traverses the system or will require regeneration. For example, MRI machines are used today to create images with or without administration of a tracer-contrast agent. Customarily, the machine is controlled to take a series of images at discrete time intervals and the images are then dynamically analyzed to obtain an output result. For example, dynamic studies of contrast enhancement in breast tumors have demonstrated that the rate of change in signal intensity is an important parameter for the distinction of breast masses, leading to pharmacokinetic studies. However, it is known that as a result of tumor heterogeneity, there are significant local variations in the time evolution of contrast enhancement, and, therefore, maintaining high spatial resolution in both the recording and analysis steps is very important. In a standard clinical MRI of the breast, it is difficult to achieve high spatial resolution and also maintain high temporal resolution. In most dynamic studies performed previously, the emphasis was on high temporal resolution (at the expense of spatial resolution) monitoring the equilibration in the intravascular space and early diffusion into the extracellular space of the tissue. As a consequence, in standard MRI machines the output results are sometimes inconclusive. The foregoing is also characteristic of other systems in which a fluid flows or a component thereof dissipates in part or requires regeneration, such as, for example, an irrigation system, a heating and cooling system and the like.
Accordingly, the object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus or a machine, and a correlated method, for monitoring a system, in which a fluid is flowing, with time in space, which will provide more conclusive results regarding system anomalies or system efficiency.
The present invention relates to an apparatus for monitoring a system with time in space. The system can be physical, chemical, biological, physiological, environmental, clinical or any other system in part or in whole, the system evolving with time over space in a certain way. The apparatus of the present invention can function on the basis of one, two, three or higher dimensions. The type and extent of spatial resolution and the number of time points and their spacing, that the apparatus selects, depend on the system and can be varied with a lower limit for the number of time points of two. For example, it can be used for processing time dependent data of radiologic examinations such as MRI, ultra-sonography, X-ray tomography or conventional X-ray, or Nuclear medicine for obtaining diagnosis, prognosis and therapy follow up of tumors or any other pathological disorders. It can be utilized for processing monitoring or controlling environmental data of water irrigation. It can be used to analyze data that will permit determination of leaking areas in pipes. It can be used to analyze data obtained in the food, cosmetic and other industries which involve mixture and solution preparations and determination of their homogeneity. It can be also used to assess the efficiency of heating and/or cooling systems.
There are numerous phenomena that evolve over space with time in a way that can be treated according to the present invention by utilizing a novel approach which is termed herein as by wash-in and wash-out behavior. The wash-in and wash-out are terms that are used symbolically to describe a change in one direction (wash-in) and the reverse change (wash-out) which may not be true reversal but can be any pathway that induces a change. Specifically flow of fluid in a system where the fluid or fluid component dissipates or needs to be regenerated, is described according to the invention as wash-in and wash-out.
For any wash-in/wash-out situation, it is possible to describe n numbers of patterns of wash-out, when n can range from 1 to any integral number, 2, 3, 4 etc., on the basis of m time points, when m can range from 2 to any integral number of specific time points in the time evolution of the process. The definition of wash-out is not strict and a wash-in can become a wash-out and vice versa.
For each kind of system, the apparatus of the present invention provides means for monitoring, controlling or regulating the system by providing means for setting time points and other optimal parameters of the system. This setting uses a novel calibration map based on a physical model which describes the evolution with time in an approximate or rigorous manner. These calibration maps serve also to interpret quantitatively the final color hue/color intensity coded maps obtained as one of the products of the apparatus.
One particular use of the novel apparatus is for contrast enhanced MRI data in order to obtain products that facilitate specific diagnosis of cancer. The time of start of contrast administration is time point tO and then two post contrast time points t1 and t2 are utilized. These post contrast times are selected by constructing calibration maps based on modelling the kinetics of contrast enhancement that relates the wash-in/wash-out rates to two pathophysiological parameters: microvascular permeability times surface area (termed in short, microvascular permeability and represented by the letter K) and fraction of extracellular volume represented by v. The calibration map is constructed by the apparatus.